Globalization and strategic partnering provide businesses with means for lowering costs and increasing revenue. Globalization of commerce is increasingly viewed as a requirement for businesses to remain viable in competitive markets. The Internet, in this competitive context, has developed not only as an important medium for entertainment and information exchange, but also as a forum for facilitating or conducting commerce, including global commerce.
Presently, commercial and informational World Wide Web sites (“web sites”) can be grouped roughly into one of two system categories: (1) provider-driven (i.e., content provider-, product seller-driven) or (2) consumer-driven (i.e., content or product consumer-driven. The difference between provider- and consumer-driven web sites or systems lies not only in which party takes the initiative to find the other, but also in which data set is used as the basis for relating the products, services or information. In a typical provider-driven system, the provider posts content in a single language, and holds itself out to the consumer using untargeted or generalized consumer data. By contrast, the consumer, in a consumer-driven system, seeks out the seller using real (i.e., qualified, tailored or targeted) consumer data.
Provider-driven systems; passive and active formats. Most current Internet informational and commerce systems are provider-driven and are either passive or active sites. A typical provider's Internet site is a passive advertising site that provides information about the content/product in a single language (usually English) and directs a generalized base of potential consumers to places where they can obtain the content/product.
A smaller number of providers have active sites that not only provide information, but also allow potential consumers to conduct a transaction over the Internet to obtain consumer-specific information or to purchase a product. The provider categorizes the content-prices, packages the information/product, and then holds it out for consumption or sale to potential consumers via the Internet. Typically, this information is presented and accessed in a single language on a given site.
Locating the desired content/product in provider-driven systems is typically a time-consuming process and often frustrating. Potential consumers must initially find the provider site, search and identify the content/product(s), and either aggregate (e.g., down-load and store) the desired information, or accept the seller's product terms or find another seller whose terms are acceptable. Information content on provider-driven sites is not typically tailored to the needs of particular consumers. For example, a potential consumer may fail to identify product information, or complete a product-related transaction if such consumer does not understand the language (e.g., English, Chinese, etc.) or technical terms of the commercial site. A typical consumer has neither the time nor the reference resources (e.g., specialized dictionaries, etc.) to effectively translate and research the language and technical or specialized terms of art associated with a given commercial web site to enable educated, informed decision making. Moreover, even if the reference resources were independently available to a potential consumer, the consumer would need to exit the site and spend considerable time accessing and consolidating the reference information. This has a negative impact on the “stickiness” of a site, because after such off-site activity, there is a high likelihood that the potential consumer will never return to the commercial web site, having been effectively deterred by the formidable tasks of translation and consolidation of information.
The magnitude of this problem, for a global consumer base, is readily appreciated by considering present web site demographics. Currently, 75% of all web sites are in English only. Even more significantly, 96% of E-commerce web sites are in English only. However, by 2003, 75% (696 million) Internet users will not be native English speakers, and 50% of the projected worldwide $1.2 trillion online B2B commerce will come from outside the United States.
Because of difficulty in user acquisition of explanatory information relating to Web site content, products sold on provider-driven sites are typically limited to lower-priced standardized goods such as books, compact disks, and videos that are suitably distributed to a generalized consumer base, comprised of those consumers that understand the language of the particular site.
Prior approaches to solving e-commerce web site globalization problems in provider-driven systems. Currently, approaches to globalization of commercial web sites include translation, and limited use of consumer-driven systems. For example, globalization of provider-driven sites is typically approached (at least by those companies that can afford it) by full text translation, either via “localization” (human translation) or “machine” translation. Globalization of a web site via localization is very costly, averaging $250,000 per site per language, and with annual maintenance costs exceeding $50,000 per site per language. To many companies it is cost prohibitive. Furthermore, many companies need to have sufficient business intelligence before making the investment to launch into a foreign market.
Full text machine translation (e.g., using Systran, IBM, SDL, etc.) is relatively less expensive, but typically yields laughable results. Machine translation attempts to translate full sentences and paragraphs, but currently provides poor results because of contextual complexity and ambiguity. Significantly, such flawed machine translations can damage corporate image and/or incur liability risk resulting from mistranslation. Some improvement in machine translation, and/or liability reduction might potentially be gained if the translation, or parts thereof, were to proceed by executable modules, downloaded to the user. However, such modules would likely be usually large and take a long time for a user to download, especially if the user has a slow connection to the Internet. Even users with high-speed Internet access may have problems with the executable modules, because many network firewalls are designed to keep these modules from being downloaded onto the user's system. In addition, the downloaded executables pose substantial browser compatibility problems. Finally, if the commercial website were to make any changes to its configuration process, a new module would need to be downloaded every time the process changes. Thus, like “localization,” machine translation is not desirable for companies wishing to post alternative-language versions of their web sites.
Consumer-driven systems. The use of client- or consumer-driven systems to reach a more global consumer base has also been contemplated. In a consumer-driven system, the consumer typically specifies the desired content requirements, or the product purchase terms, and then “posts” this specification for provider access. Some examples of consumer-driven systems on the Internet are “news groups” and “bulletin boards,” where any potential consumer can post “wanted” advertisements at little or no cost.
Consumer-driven Internet systems have inherent benefits that other systems do not. For example, where a large number of potential providers exist, but those providers do not have the resources to advertise globally it makes sense for consumers, if they can, to take the initiative in communicating their needs to them. Theoretically, the Internet is an ideal medium upon which to address this situation because Internet postings are global, and the posted consumer data theoretically communicates a need/offer to a large number of potential providers. Moreover, such consumers can, at least in principle, exercise more control in limiting content to desired categories, or in setting the terms and conditions of their specific purchases, by strategically tailoring their posted consumer data.
However, despite these advantages, existing consumer-driven systems have substantial drawbacks for both consumers and providers. Significantly, it is difficult, if not impossible for providers to efficiently target the needs of a consumer base that is scattered across the Internet, and comprised of amorphous and undiscriminating newsgroups, bulletin boards, and the like that host unqualified postings that may be in a variety of languages.
Moreover, even in the case of qualified consumers, each consumer typically has different content requirements or purchasing specifications, and communicates his or her needs to providers using a non-standard format using, e.g., different languages, features, attributes, conditions, terms, or language styles. Translating, interpreting and addressing such non-standard specifications simply requires too much time of the typical provider.
Consumers are likewise deterred from using current consumer-driven systems. For example, the potential consumer may refrain from using such a system where he or she has little or no control over the nature and amount of content provided in response to the particular consumer data posted. Additionally, the consumer may be reluctant to post content/product/service needs where he or she has little or no experience with the particular content/product/service and is unable to effectively address the lack of knowledge. These concerns are compounded where the desired information content or the product being sold is available in multiple, highly technical, complex data or product configurations.
Thus client/consumer driven systems, like full-text machine translation or human localization approaches, do not address the globalization problems for businesses with commercial web pages that post content and/or transact in a single language format.
Prior approaches to solving e-commerce web site globalization problems in consumer-driven systems. Various approaches in the art have been employed to aid the client/consumer in translation. RichLink and Babylon represent typical prior art approaches. RichLink is a product that allows a client to customize definitions of particular words and phrases that occur on a web page. However, the process is not automatic and to do so, the client must first leave the web page to obtain the definition from individual separate sources, and then the definition must be manually entered and maintained on the web page. Likewise, Babylon provides limited translation of user-selected words, but is not integrated into providers web pages, and requires downloaded software to be resident and executable on the client side.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for cost-effective methods of high quality globalization of commercial web sites. There is a need in the art to render commercial web sites, such as provider-directed web sites, more accessible and responsive to the multi-lingual characteristics of individual global clients. There is a need in the art for methods of web site translation that do not require full-text human or machine translation. There is a need in the art for web site-integrated translation and data-mining methods for tailoring content on otherwise generalized provider-driven commercial web sites to address the needs of a global client base. There is a need in the art to reduce the amount of client-side processing involved with conducting commercial web site translations and transactions. There is a need in the art to enhance commercial web site “stickiness” for an increasingly global client base whose first language is not that of the site. There is a need in the art for a cost-effective apparatus and web site-integrated method for providing high quality simultaneous searching of multiple dictionaries to obtain multi-lingual translations, explanations, and consolidated automatic multi-dictionary definitions of user-selected text, in text, voice, image or multi-media format.